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In reply to the discussion: United Nations Says Changing U.S. Marijuana Laws Violate International Drug Conventions [View all]maindawg
(1,151 posts)their condemnation of Portugal, Geneva, Iran, North Korea, Nepal,Pakistan, Spain, Switzerland, and Urugway.Why is Cannabis illegal at all?
A smear campain. Racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white mens shadows and look at a white woman twice.
Background
For most of human history, marijuana has been completely legal. Its not a recently discovered plant, nor is it a long-standing law. Marijuana has been illegal for less than 1% of the time that its been in use. Its known uses go back further than 7,000 B.C. and it was legal as recently as when Ronald Reagan was a boy.
The marijuana (hemp) plant, of course, has an incredible number of uses. The earliest known woven fabric was apparently of hemp, and over the centuries the plant was used for food, incense, cloth, rope, and much more. This adds to some of the confusion over its introduction in the United States, as the plant was well known from the early 1600?s, but did not reach public awareness as a recreational drug until the early 1900?s.
Americas first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law ordering all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other must grow laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.
The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp plantations (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.